Many individuals have trouble walking either due to a procedure or as a result of chronic injuries/conditions. There are various types of devices that are utilized in the field to provide assistance for a user in aiding them to walk. Devices such as but not limited to canes, crutches and wheeled devices are known in the art and utilized to a assist a user in walking. While these types of devices are reasonably effective at assisting a user in walking across a flat surface, they are not equipped to assist a user in walking on other surfaces such as but not limited to stairs. Some individuals require more balance assistance and as such it is common for these individuals to utilize devices such as walkers. Conventional walkers have a frame that provides four points of contact around a user so as to ensure the stability of a user during use thereof.
One issue with conventional walkers is the ability to accommodate stairs. The frames of conventional walkers typically have four legs wherein each leg is the same length. Some models provide wheels on two of the four legs to assist in the ease of moving the walker during utilization thereof. Conventional walkers cannot be configured to accommodate adjacent stair treads. When attempting to utilize a conventional walker to ascend a staircase the front legs are on a tread that is higher than the tread of the stair on which the rear legs are superposed. This results in an unstable platform and renders these conventional walkers inoperable to assist a user to ascend a staircase.
Accordingly, there is a need for an ambulatory assistance apparatus that is configurable to assist a user in traversing across a flat surface as well as being adaptable to engage a staircase so as to provide a level interface when ascending and/or descending the staircase.